


Shooting Stars

by GuileandGall



Series: Violaceous Fury [13]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Relationship Expectations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1842607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding Furia watching the night sky expectantly after a family gathering leads to a conversation that neither Troy nor she planned or expected to have at that moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shooting Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Chy for her help and assistance, as always.

**Shooting Stars**

The door creaked when it opened. Troy shook his head, recalling that he had been saying he was going to spray those hinges for quite some time. Of course every time he remembered it, Furia invariably kept him from doing it for just that reason. Furia did not like to be snuck up on and preferred the warning the shrieking metal offered. She always explained it away by telling him that the part of her that liked surprises was left on the floating debris of a boat in Stilwater. The boss preferred to know when someone or something might be sneaking up on her in the darkness. Of course, on this rooftop at this time of night she would likely know who it was before he reached her.

Furia did not acknowledge his approach, which suggested he had been correct. Troy leaned over the edge of the sofa and found her laying there, eyes cast aloft. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead before he retreated slightly. Bradshaw rested against the back of the couch, while the fingers of one hand traced the waves in her hair as she continued to stare up into the hazy night sky.

"What are you doing up here?" he finally asked.

"You never see shooting stars in the city," Furia replied. It was neither an answer, nor an explanation.

"You rarely see them anywhere, but with the light and the smog and everything else, yeah, you'd probably never see one in town. Even up here."

After that neither of them said anything for a while. Bradshaw just watched her as her eyes moved between the few stars bright enough to outshine the city below. Eventually, he pulled the cushions off the back of the sofa and hopped over the side, snuggling down beside her and resting his temple on his fist as he continued to watch her face.

"And why are you looking for shooting stars?" he whispered toward her shoulder, eyes still on her face.

Her gaze finally met his. "Not looking for them really, but sometimes I think it might be nice to find one," she said, returning her gaze back to the sky. "You know? See if that wishing shit actually pans out."

Troy drew his thumb over the edge of the divot of her throat as he considered what she said. For a moment he concentrated on the smoothness of her skin as he tried to decide quite how to approach her search. "Is this about Memo and Gloria's news?"

"Goddamn it!"

She hopped off the couch and Troy sat up just as hastily, sliding forward to try and catch her but his tenuous grab at her sleeve was easily shaken off.

"Why does everyone keep assuming I have some kind of issue with this? Gabriel, Tio, Miguel, and now you. I'm happy for him okay. It's fine. He has the life I always wanted for him and the rest of them--a decent _normal_ job, someone who loves him, and now he's … he's going to be a father."

At the shift in her tone, Troy made up the distance she had placed between them in a heartbeat, pulling her against him. Furia sank against him for a moment then she caught herself. After a quick fidgeting spell, he allowed her to extract herself from his embrace, but once she stilled again, he merely set his hand on her back and remained within arm's reach.

"I know this is hard on you. Family's everything to you, always was; still is in a lot of ways even if the definition's changed. And I know your siblings have always been high among your priorities."

His attempt to explain things stopped when she turned and looked at up him with more struggle in her gaze than he could remember seeing in a long time. Her hands were warm on his cheeks, her kiss light. "Mi Cielo," she whispered, her words tickling against his lips. "I really don't want to be analyzed or profiled or whatever the fuck you're trying to do right now. Okay?"

"Then talk to me and I won't have to infer what's going through that thick skull of yours, sweetheart."

Furia walked toward the railing and leaned there. Troy took the chance and hemmed her in again. Running his hands down her arms, he leaned over her and rested his chin on her shoulder as they each looked out at the bright lights of Steelport.

"This is not how I ever imagined my life," she said quietly.

"I expect not."

He knew her story, learned it a long time ago piece by piece. He also knew that the Saints had been sort of a last resort for her. She explained it once in simple yet morbid terms when she told him that the night he and Julius found her she should have died. So, in her opinion, every day she got after was borrowed time and that was nearly ten years ago. He also knew that she still viewed her life along that vein, especially after the night Lin died and the boat ride with the alderman. After waking from the coma, she remained convinced that God was playing a sick cosmic joke on her.

The times she should have died and did not just kept adding up. The number of people who seemed to look in her direction and decide they needed to end any potential threat from her was staggering. She laughingly told Troy once that she had already beaten out the nine-lived cat and that she did not know what else could possibly be left.

Furia never saw herself as invincible--in fact she saw herself as incredibly fallible, which is why she perpetually overcompensated in her attempts to master any skill she thought might give her an edge the next time around. He at once adored and reviled both her skill and her groundedness. Troy assumed that it was the combination of the two that made it possible that she was still in his life. Of course he also blamed those same traits and what she called her realistic outlook on the fact that she never looked toward tomorrow.

The Saints, as an organization, was run like a business, under the combined efforts of many heads and hands, while mainly under Pierce's guidance. Washington's head for business was unmatched in the gang that had become something wholly other over the years. Though when they needed a big decision made or negotiations required just that amount of something extra they would call Furia in, but mostly she stuck to what she knew and what she did not have Johnny around to handle anymore. The boss concerned herself with the more hands-on aspects.

With the mere thought of it, Troy tucked his face into that spot where her neck met her shoulder, savoring the warmth of her skin. The subtle hint of vanilla clung to her; he always found comfort in it. Over the years it became something he completely associated with her. The taste, the smell, hell, even the word Vanilla would instantly bring her to mind. Furia threaded her fingers through his hair as he pressed a kiss on the thudding pulse beating just below the surface of her flesh.

"Is that why you were looking for a star?" he muttered, trying to keep any trace of his own concern for her out of his voice.

She took a deep breath before turning her head and kissing his forehead lightly. "I've already got my star, my own little slice of heaven," she said, running her hand over his arms as he tightened them around her. "Mi cielo."

When she said it, Troy could hear the trace of her smile in her tone. It was the one phrase she used most often in reference to him. It was among the rare bits of Spanish he had picked up over the years and knew it meant _my heaven_. He nuzzled against the side of her neck debating.

"But you wanted something else? Something more?" He could hear the hesitance in his own quiet voice.

"No. Pretty much since I've met you I wanted you. And I've got that."

Despite the measure of relief her words offered, Bradshaw could not help but think she was trying to placate him, and so he pushed. "You know I'll do anything for you."

She leaned away slightly, glancing at him over her shoulder, her hazel eyes meeting his. "And I'll have you know that so far, this is the only part of my life I've managed to finally get right." She leaned back against him, encouraging him to tighten his embrace on her, which Troy did. "I spent all that time worried about what anyone else would think, hiding you--us--away. It was so stupid," she admitted, as her fingers laced with his.

"That wasn't just on you," he reminded.

After all, it would have been a little hard to justify his own career if everyone in town knew that the woman he went home to every night was the queen of the criminal element of Stilwater. Hell, there would have been calls for his resignation, which just made him ask himself again why he had not retired earlier than he did.

"I know," she relented. "But--" Furia shook her head slightly.

"What?" he whispered against the shell of her ear.

"Do you ever wonder where we might be if I had been a little less stubborn?"

He laughed and said, "Always," before she even finished, which earned him a playful slap on the shoulder.

"Pendejo."

After a moment, Furia turned in his arms, her hands sliding over his shoulders as she leaned against the railing. "You remember that night up at that cabin? When you told me I should just get out of Stilwater--go pick up all the little ones, hit Memo with a crowbar, and just drive until the car gave up?"

His eyes never left hers and his hands balled into fists in the silk of her robe. He swallowed back the emotion rising in him and nodded before he replied simply. "Yes."

"I thought you were just being over protective, trying to make me into something I wasn't sure I wanted to be."

He shook his head once, trying to fight off the regret that still stabbed at him over so many of the things they had both missed because of the choices they had each made, separately and together. "I knew you wouldn't do it when I suggested it. But I felt like I had to try."

"What would you have done if I said yes?"

The look in her eyes wrenched his heart. She had to know the answer, or so he thought. That night still haunted his memory and his dreams. There were times when he would see how her life weighed on her, and the voice in his head would ask why he even bothered to present it as a question that night. It would gain that accusatory tone and interrogate him. _Why didn't you just keep driving? Why didn't you just take her too far to drive back? Take her somewhere, find a little corner of the world and tell her to forget about Stilwater, leave it all behind? Seeing the reality of it might have done the trick._ Sometimes he thought it might have saved them both. She might not have lost or had to give up quite so much if he had just been a little stronger that night.

Troy cleared his throat and smiled down at her. "Before or after I threw you over my shoulder and dragged you to the car?"

Furia's laughter brightened the darkness her earlier mood had cast on the night surrounding them, as her arms tightened around him. The caress of her breath on his neck helped ease some of the tension he battled against.

"Tell me what you want," Troy whispered in her hair. "If there was none of this, and it was just us."

She held him a little closer, her fingers stroking down the back of his neck in that comforting way she had. "What ifs won't help," she murmured against his skin.

"They don't have to be intangible." He looked up at the stars, suddenly finding himself searching for a shooting star to hang his own wish on.

"Troy…"

The tone was familiar, weighted with the pain and laden with the brush strokes of arguments and disagreements they both remembered too well. It was the same way she said his name whenever he persisted in his proposals even though Furia always refused.

"No! I don't want the excuses this time," he said too quickly and with a sternness even he did not expect. His hand slid slowly up her throat until her eyes finally rose to his. His tone shifted as he continued. "I don't want to hear those same old stale reasons. This isn't about the Saint's, it's not about the guys, or my job, or the family. It's not about anything but us. Right here. Right now. Just you and me, Soledad."

"My answer's going to be the same either way, and you already know it."

His forehead bent to meet hers, while her hands moved over his back.

"Mi rey," she said softly.

That one always made him smile.

"I'm yours. Have been even when it would have been better for both of us to just walk away." With that his arm around her waist tightened in a show of his refusal of the notion. Hers did as well, fingers pressing into his back. "And I will be. But we both know that  with the choices we have both made anything more than this is foolish--too selfish," she said, her eyes meeting his. Then Furia slowly closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder, her face turned toward the city beyond.

"That's not what I asked," Bradshaw whispered into her hair. He did not know why he was pushing for her to break his heart. But there was something in him that needed to know that maybe he was not the only one haunted by thoughts and images of something else--dreams of her draped in white, or of him painting her toenails because she could no longer reach them herself, or of there being three plates to set for dinner instead of two.

His jaw and his embrace tightened against the taut tingling sensation that rolled through his body. As his eyes welled, Troy raised his gaze to that hazy night sky, burning with an orangish glow that just seemed to mimic his own personal hell.

They were both still and silent for some time, just clinging to the one thing they each felt they had not screwed up in their lives. When her lips pressed against his shoulder, Troy kissed the top of her head as she stirred. Her head turned as she buried her face in his neck, her temple coming to rest against his collarbone. When her hand snaked over his shoulder and stroked at the back of his neck, fingernails scratching lightly at the shorter hair at the back of his head, he sighed trying to grasp at his remaining resolve.

"I gave up those kinds of ideas before I ever met you," she breathed finally.

Despite the familiar comfort of her breath on his neck, the words stunned him. It took what felt like forever for him to finally ask, "Do you ever think about it?"

Her hand tightened on the back of his neck, more than answer enough for him.

"God help me," he sighed, letting his head fall back again.

Kissing his neck, her hands found his cheeks and drew his gaze to hers. "Troy, I love you."

"I know." He pressed his forehead to hers. The burning in his chest intensified as he looked down into her face. "But what I can't figure out is why those things can't be for us."

Furia slipped out of his grip and sat on the corner of the sofa. She rested her elbows on her knees and raised her clasped hands to her lips as she designed her answer--he knew the posture too well. When her gaze returned to him, the strain in her eyes stung him and made his breathing shaky, but her voice was calm though weighted with sorrow.

"I'm not someone's mother. Nor am I a wife."

"That is a matter of opinion," he challenged, his tone more biting than he intended, holding tightly to the railing with both hands. "I'd throttle half of Steelport to get you in a frilly white dress. And let's just ask Gabriel his opinion about that other one."

He knew bringing up her youngest brother could backfire on him. In fact, for a long time he assumed the reason she never brought up kids was because she had already raised six, essentially. When her eyes shot to his, the note of warning there made Troy wonder if he had pushed too hard. She just stared at him and he could feel the chasm opening to swallow him whole.

"What do you want me to say, Troy?"

Her lips pressed together as she let that question linger in the gulf between them. With a one shouldered shrug, she let him glimpse the unmarked graves that scarred her.

"Yes, on laundry day when my grandmother hung the sheets outside on the line I would drape them over my head and imagine my wedding day. And for a long time whenever I held a baby I would look at that sweet cherubic face and imagine for just a moment or two that I was rocking and lullabying my own. Is that what you want to hear?"

"But you don't want them with me?" he said too calmly.

"¡Maldita sea!" she cried, throwing her hands in the air before pounding her shaking fist to her chest. "I don't want them at all."

"What changed?" His reply was sharp and quick.

"ME! I changed," she yelled as she popped back to her feet. Then the motion started--the pacing and the hands that could not find a perch. "Dios, how does that saying go?"

Furia pushed her hands through her black hair as she rounded the low table that sat in the center of the seating area, which was little more than one big sofa.

"When I left childhood, I put away childish things, I think." She stopped again, staring at him with eyes darkened by grief for something that never drew breath. "Well let me assure you that the foolish dreams of silly little girls fade like dandelion fluff on the wind."

Her words knocked the wind right out of him. He knew her, heard all the stories, knew the pain--Furia's world brimmed with loss and the expectation hefted on her because of it. Bradshaw had no illusions that she had anything akin to a typical childhood. His grip on the railing tightened, if only to keep himself upright as the little pieces of her past ran through his head as if being flashed on a screen by some overzealous prosecutor: father dead by eight, mother dead by eleven, grandparents at sixteen, got her GED so she could graduate early, dropped out of community college because of Gabe's pneumonia, worked every crap legal job Stilwater offered, then walked down the wrong street one night.

Dreams were never something the woman he loved gave much credence too; she was more comfortable with nightmares and reality. He knew this. Suddenly he felt the sting of his own selfishness; he never wanted those things his upbringing drilled into him to want--wife, kids, family. Troy never saw that for himself, not until her. With the way she loved her family, he initially figured it was something that would just happen for them. Then when he finally asked her to marry him and she declined, he was beside himself. He never saw her refusal coming.

Furia had told him once she did not see herself as the big white dress kind of girl, and Troy had assumed it was merely something she said to put him at ease and alleviate any expectation he might have. That first refusal set him back; despite it he kept asking over the years, though of late his proposals were less planned out and more heartfelt than the earlier ones.

"After Mama died I started questioning those types of fairytales. It took a little while for the allure to dull, but eventually reality set in. I'd given up ideas like the fairytale wedding to some prince charming and the pitter-patter of little feet years before I ever laid eyes on you, Troy Bradshaw."

With the use of his full name, he looked up at her. She gazed at him in that way she did when he would catch her staring at him or wake up to find her stroking his hair--he always equated it with something akin to fascination and joy. Then it changed, her eyes darkened slowly and her brow drew downward as the frown curved her lips. "A part of me wants to give you those things. But I can't. I can't be the one that leaves you a widower. I can't be the one that orphans children," she said before the sob broke her composure.

There was nothing more for him in that moment than to catch her as she fell, to hold her close as she let go. And even though he knew no amount of sorry could reverse the dam he had just burst through, it did not stop him from repeatedly whispering that word and other declarations just as steadfast and true in her hair as he held her against his chest, rocking her as he stroked her hair.


End file.
